let me show you what this life is for
by The Original Horcrux
Summary: He acts as if nothing is wrong, but you see straight through it. You can see his pain, his grief over his mother's recent death, it takes all of your self-restraint not to wrap him up in your arms and kiss the pain away .:For Laura:.


_For __**Someone aka Me**__ (Laura)_

* * *

let me show you what this life is for

He thinks that nobody notices.

He thinks that nobody sees the pain reflected in his eyes and in his expression. He thinks that nobody knows what he's going through, being disowned by his parents and all.

But you know.

You know how it feels to be at such a low point in your life that you feel that you can never claw your way back out again, you know that worthless feeling all too well, you know what he's going through, even if he doesn't know that yet.

He acts as if nothing is wrong, but you see straight through it. You can see his pain, his grief over his mother's recent death; ittakes all of your self-restraint not to wrap him up in your arms and kiss the pain away. But you don't, because Remus doesn't need to be burdened with the fact that you're in love with him. You can see that it would probably push him over the edge.

He cries at night when he thinks that nobody can hear him, but you can and your heart breaks into thousands of tiny pieces as you hear the sobs that rack his body being stifled in his pillow and you wish that the pillow was your shoulder so that you could rub his back and run your fingers through his hair and whisper to him that it will be okay in the end. Because you know how it feels to be estranged from your family, you know how it feels to be disowned. You didn't particularly love – or even _like –_your parents or brother but it doesn't make it hurt any less, even after all this time.

You watch him every day, see how he slowly breaks down, and you wish that you had the courage to say something, you wish that you could go up to him and tell him that you are here for him no matter what and you know that you should, but you can't, because you're nothing but a coward when it comes to those emotional things.

One night, he doesn't cry.

He doesn't make a sound and you suddenly hear footsteps moving towards the bathroom, the soft thud of the door closing and the click of the lock. You start to panic. You know from experience what's going to happen and you have to do something;it can't be one of those moments where you sit back and watch Remus slowly crack into more and more pieces. Throwing back your hangings, you rush as quietly as you can to the bathroom door and rattle the handle loudly, hoping to deter Remus from what he's about to do.Nothing happens from inside the bathroom and your heartbeat quickens as you fumble for your wand and point it at the lock and you let out a small sigh of relief when it clicks open. You burst into the white tiled room, expecting to see Remus lying on the cold ground with blood spurting everywhere, but there is no blood to be found. It takes you a moment to realise, but he hasn't chosen the same road that you went down, he has chosen a different, more permanent route and as you turn slowly to your left, your heart jumps into your throat as you see your best friend, your _love_, stepping off a chair with a strong rope around his neck.

Your mouth goes dry and you manage to choke out a spell which severs the rope as he drops. He falls and you somehow move and catch him before he hits the ground. You rip the rope from around his neck and throw it across the room as Remus claws at your shoulder, tears streaming down his face as his body jerks uncontrollably in your arms. He can't seem to make a sound and for a second you worry that the rope has done something to his vocal cords but then you realise that he can't talk because he doesn't know how to feel, he doesn't know whether to thank you or be angry at you. And you don't know what to say, you don't know whether to get angry at him, or whether you should comfort him.

"Jesus,Rem," you say, surprised at how breathless you are, "You fucking scared me."

Remus looks up at you with wide eyes as sounds of sobs finally emanate from his mouth. You hug him close and his arms wrap around you like a small child clinging to his mother on the first day of pre-school. You hold him tightly as you think about what might've happened if ithad been just a second later, if youhad chosen to pick the lock with the bobby pin you always keep on you instead of using your wand. You would've surely walked in here to find Remus hanging from the rafters.

This is when you realise:Remus was meant to live, he was meant to stay in this world,and this is when you realise that Remus needs you and he's been kept here so that you can help him, so that you can help him get better.

You sit there for what seems like hours on the cold bathroom floor until Remus' sobs subside into sleep. You lift him off the ground and you're shocked at how light he is and that's when you remember that he doesn't eat at mealtimes. You'd always assumed that he was after the nicer food that they kept down in the kitchens, but never had you imagined that Remus was starving himself.

As quietly as you can, you lay him down on his bed and pull the covers up to his chin, and you can't help but think that if you hadn't got there as quickly as you did, you might be watching Remus lying like this in a morgue.

Remus refuses to talk to you after that night.

You try to approach him the next morning at breakfast, but he ignores you and when you see that he still isn't eating, you prompt him to have some of the mashed potatoes as you mention how tasty they are. Remus just glares at you and says that he isn't hungry.

You try everything that you can to get him to open up to you, and youknow that he might not be ready but you wish that he would at least talk to you about what happened. You realise that he mightn't want to, but you can't stop the images of him hanging from a rope with his neck broken from entering your head, you can't stop thinking about what would've happened if you had been sleeping, you can't stop visualising his broken body lying in a morgue, ready to be buried and cried over by people who pretended that they cared about him. Just the thought of him dying plagues your dreams every night and you wake up covered in a thin layer of sweat as you peek around your hangings to make sure that he's still safe in bed.

You don't know what you'd do if he was to try to do that again.

The fact that Remus won't talk to you after what happened hurts you more than you could ever describe. It's like a thousand knives flying into your chest and sticking there instead of them falling out. You don't think you can go on like this; you need him to talk to you, to admit his demons so that you can move on with him. You wish that you could tell him why you saved him, that you could tell him that you've known he was breaking apart slowly for a long time but you were too much of a coward to mention it.

You wish that he would try to find some closure in you so you could find your closure in him.

* * *

You should know by now that your wishes never come true.

There was once a time that you wished that your parents would accept you for being in Gryffindor, there was once a time where you wished that your father might congratulate you for your excellent marks in school, there was once a time when you wished that your mother would hug you after a tough year at school - but none of that ever happened; you were always sent to your room, yelled at and ridiculed. You gave up on wishing and hoping long time ago.

And bit by bit, as the weeks go by, you feel yourself giving up on Remus. You still have nightmares about him dying, you still battle your feelings for him but you stop trying to talk to him, you stop asking him if he's okay and, eventually, you lose all of your contact with him. You still make sure that he's safe though, every night when you're avoiding sleep, you watch over him, you make sure that he sleeps and stays in bed but you never allow yourself anything more than that.

James and Peter can't seem to figure out what's wrong. They don't have a single clue why two of their friends aren't speaking to each other and they gave up asking after a few stabs at trying to figure out what was happening. You aren't offended in any way; in fact, you're glad that they know when not to persist in finding something out. You aren't sure that you want them in on this, and you're positive that Remus doesn't want them to know anything.You suppose that's why Remus doesn't want to talk to you, because you found out and that had been Remus' secret and you're just too damn observant.

You can't keep putting yourself down to try and lift Remus up; you have to let it go. You have to let _him_ go and, finally, after months and months of wishing and hoping, you give up.

* * *

It's the end of year dance and you've gone stag for the third year in a row. You feel sorry for all the poor sods who brought dates that they have to dance with all night when you can go and snog whoever you want. You can't help noticing, however, that Remus too came stag. You quickly move your eyes away from him. You've given up on him but just because you've given up trying to talk to him about what happened doesn't mean that you don't still care.

You try to push him out of your mind and enjoy the dance. James finally got a date with Evans and you and Peter have made it your mission to screw up it up somehow to let Evans know that James might've changed but you haven't.

Remus nags at your mind all night and at one point you find yourself sweaty and panicked and your eyes dart around to find the tall, slender boy who you've tried so hard to give up on. You finally spot him slipping out of the hall and you know that you have to follow.

You excuse yourself from your conversation with Peter and his date, Melissa, abruptly, and hurry towards the doors that lead out into the entrance hall. He is nowhere to be seen, but the oak front doors are cracked open and you know he's gone out into the grounds. You start to panic as you think of all of the things that reside in the grounds that could hurt him. You stand atop the front stairs to the castle, looking around frantically for a silhouette, for any sign of life, but darkness closes around you and you can only see by light of the moon as you move further and further away from the castle. You light your wand but it doesn't cast any light more than two metres around you. Itdraws unwanted attention to you.

Silence presses in on your ears, threatening to make your eardrums burst. It's the silence that is normally accompanied by Remus' sobs and your heartbeat quickens as you strain your eyes, looking around for movement.

You jump a foot in the air as you hear a rustle and a thud from somewhere on your left in the distance. You look up and you see a single person making their way up to the very top of the cliff that overlooks the lake, the cliff that students tendto scale and climb into a crevice when they wanted to have a drink with some friends or just to be alone. You've used it often, and the empty beer bottles in there tell more stories than some people do.

You know that Remus isn't headed to the crevice though; he's going up the hill to the top of the cliff, and the only way to get to the crevice is to go to the bottom of the cliff and climb up using the well-worn footholds.

Climbing down from the top would be suicide.

_Oh shit_, you think, _suicide,_ and immediately break into a run, tearing through the small patches of vegetation that stand in your way, not caring about how long they might've taken to grow. You know that you've thrown away all hope of having any kind of inconspicuousness now.

All you care about is getting to Remus before he has the chance to jump.

Your legs burn and your lungs scream for you to stop but you don't. Youkeep your legs moving at the same pace and you see yourself gaining on Remus. He'salmost reached the top. You force your legs to run faster and faster until you feel like they're going to fall off and before you know it you've reached Remus and you're grabbing his shoulder and pulling him away from the edge."Stop," you say as you hold back tears, "You can't do this, Rem."

"I can do what I want," Remus replies dully, "I'm legally an adult, remember?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't mean you can jump," you say frantically.

"What do you care?" Remus asks bitterly and Sirius feels another knife dig its way into his heart.

"What do I care?" you ask, your voice choked, "I care so much, Rem. I saved your life six months ago! I tried to ask you to tell me why and then, when you didn't want to, I left you alone and then asked you again when I thought you were ready, but you wouldn't tell me, and then you wouldn't talk to me so I gave up!" You pause to catch your breath and wipe away your tears. You've never cried like this before. "Rem, can you just tell me why you want to do this?"

"How do you expect me to talk about my demons when they're sitting on my lungs?" Remus yells and you take a step back, your mouth opening slightly as Remus looks at you with hurt glistening in his eyes.

"Rem-," you start but he cuts you off.

"There are days, Sirius, when I can't breathe, when I sit there thinking about what might've happened if Greyback didn't choose me. I would still have a family, my aunt wouldn't have disowned me, I may have even had brothers or sisters. And then I realise that nothing, _nothing_ that I wish for, or hope for, or think about, can bring them back and I can't fucking _breathe_, Sirius! It's like the air is being slowly forced out of my lungs and I have to fight so damn hard to get it back in, and the worst part is, nobody cares enough to try to help." Tears run down Remus' face as he says this and you feel yourself choke up as you hear him say these words.

"Remus," you say carefully, "I care."

"If you care so much then why did you wait until I tried to take my life to show it?" Remus spits.

"I'm a coward," you say simply, "I just couldn't do it. Please, Remus, come back inside."

"Why not?" Remus asks, "Why couldn't you have just come up to me and asked me what was wrong?"

"Because I was a coward, Rem. I was just battling so hard with myself internally and every time I wanted to comfort you or cheer you up, I would just choke up and wimp out. Will you please just come back inside with me?" you beg, gesturing back towards the inviting lights of Hogwarts.

"Give me one good reason why I should," Remus asks.

You take a deep breath, it's now or never, "Because I love you."

"What?" he says, his eyes wide and disbelieving and you wonder when the last time was that those last three words were spoken to him.

"I," you say, taking a step towards him, "love," another step, "you."

"Prove it," Remus says softly.

"Okay then," you say, leaning forward and cupping his face in your hands. You bring your lips together in a kiss. Remus responds to the display of affection immediately, his tongue working its way past your lips and into your mouth where it explores every nook and cranny. You kiss him back with just as much passion as you tangle your hands in his hair, he wraps his around your waist and draws you closer until your body is pressed against his. You don't ever want to stop, but Remus is the one who breaks off the kiss, the ghost of a smile on his face for a fraction of a second before the worry lines appear again.

"Will you please come back inside now?" you ask, slightly breathless from both the kiss and the fact that Remus had been so close to him.

Remus looks at you with a sad look in his eye as he shakes his head slowly, "I'm sorry, Sirius," he says, "This doesn't change the fact that this is my life now, it doesn't change the werewolf bite or my mother's suicide, it doesn't change the fact that my aunt disowned me… but I'm just glad I got to tell you how I felt before I did this. Thank you, and I'm so, so sorry."

He holds his arms out wide and lets himself fall backwards.

You launch yourself at the empty space where he stood on instinct but all this does is bring you closer to the edge, where you see Remus' body fall almost as if in slow motion and you let out a scream of anguish as you hear his body shatter on the rocks below.

**AN: I hope you liked it, Laura, sorry it's ten thousand years late.**

**I don't really know where this story came from, it kind of formulated from a post that I saw on Tumblr about someone who's friend committed suicide even after she'd been stopped about three times and then stuff happened and so did writing and we ended up here :D**

**Also thanks to my little shithead Paula, who is the funniest, sexiest, sweetest, most perfect, and most humble person I have ever known, for betaing. I love her more than life itself.**

**I'd love it if you could spare the time to give me a review :)**

**DFTBA, **

**Best Wishes**

**~The Original Horcrux~**


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